Another day, another K-pop controversy.
This time, the Bangtan Boys have been put on blast for plagiarism, following the recent release of their latest album, “Young Forever”, taken from the “The Most Beautiful Moment In Life” trilogy. SHINee fans claim that BTS’ album artworks are too similar to the ones SHINee released back in 2014.
According to All Kpop, the overall album concept for “Young Forever” and SHINee’s 2014 Japanese album hold too many similarities to be a just coincidence. A side by side comparison includes BTS and SHINee up in the air in a multi-coloured hot air balloon, the boys gathering around a campfire under the night sky, and them simply chilling by a vintage van.
Fans are of course equally divided on the issue. “SHINee’s first picture was a teaser that was uploaded on a Japanese mobile sites. The teaser is at an angle that is commonly used overseas. There is indeed a hot air balloon in the MV and from what I know, hot air balloons weren’t only used by SHINee,” a netizen pointed out.
The fan added that the campfire snapshot “is also not a capture from SHINee’s MV. There is a limited monthly magazine called Shawol-J for subscribed Japanese fans, and that’s where the picture is from. An international fan had used Tumblr to make it black and white and edited it to include the stars. It’s not in the MV, or the album.”
As for the vintage van similarity, both boy bands are seen using a bright coloured camping trailer for transportation. A netizen pointed that “for SHINee, it’s an MV capture, but instead of sitting in front of the camping car like BTS, SHINee dashes out of the camping car. They’re both camping concepts and it’s difficult to call it plagiarism.”
Regardless of whether you agree with this netizen’s point of view, Timmy Dee explains that “plagiarism accusations, be they real or imagined, are also just part of the game”. Commentator Chicamaingay has a suggestion for BTS for their next record though: Wear absolutely nothing! “But they might still be accused of plagiarising porn stars anyway,” he said.
While we allow the drama to cool off, let’s just press play on BTS’ new music video, “Fire“, shall we? The dance sequence is pretty dope!
